


The Holidays Are Murder

by rightsidethru



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: A MURDER MYSTERY., Do you know what every holiday needs?, M/M, Steter - Freeform, Steter Secret Santa, Steter Secret Santa 2020
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28274982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rightsidethru/pseuds/rightsidethru
Summary: Peter knew that the seasonal festivities had arrived the morning that he came downstairs to make himself a quick cup of coffee before heading in to the office for the day and came across Stiles standing in front of the living room’s windows, steaming cup clutched in his hands, and staring across the street with narrowed eyes. His express was set, lines firm and harsh and assessing, and he looked so much like a General surveying the battlefield before sending in the troops.“Gladys finally brought out the Christmas decorations, didn’t she?” the ‘wolf asked, resigned and already knowing the answer as Stiles’ gaze narrowed even further until it became a squinty-eyed glare that promised utter eradication of all who stood in his way.
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 15
Kudos: 134
Collections: The Steter Network





	The Holidays Are Murder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luulapants](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luulapants/gifts).



> Belated Happy Holidays, luulapants!
> 
> Again, I'm sorry for being a Loserface and getting this out late. ;_; This was definitely a multi-fold issue--putting down the wrong due date and then COVID time has made days and weeks (and months!!) blur. XD;; Add on to the fact that this actually wasn't the story I've been writing for you... I was in the process of typing it up, and then this plot bunny reared its fanged head and refused to let things go. *side-eyes it hardcore* Once I finish the other story, I still fully intend on gifting it to you, too; this one just would not go away, unfortunately. :D;;
> 
> Regardless, I hope that you like The Holidays Are Murder, and I hope that _your_ holidays contain a little less murder than Stiles'. <3

**The Holidays Are Murder**

_Hans Gruber: I have a machine gun. Ho Ho Ho._  
-Die Hard (1988)

***

Peter knew that the seasonal festivities had arrived the morning that he came downstairs to make himself a quick cup of coffee before heading in to the office for the day and came across Stiles standing in front of the living room’s windows, steaming cup clutched in his hands, and staring across the street with narrowed eyes. His express was set, lines firm and harsh and assessing, and he looked so much like a General surveying the battlefield before sending in the troops.

“Gladys finally brought out the Christmas decorations, didn’t she?” the ‘wolf asked, resigned and already knowing the answer as Stiles’ gaze narrowed even further until it became a squinty-eyed glare that promised utter eradication of all who stood in his way.

“Two weeks earlier than last year and the year before. She must have a _Plan_ and must be feeling pretty confident about it,” the amber-eyed man muttered in response even as he took a fortifying sip of his coffee. “I’ll be showing _her_ soon enough, though… She won’t see me coming _this_ year…”

Rolling his eyes at the ridiculousness of his mate, Peter gave up the morning as a lost cause and went to make himself his cup of coffee. Upon hearing Stiles mutter about Northeast quadrants and multiple access routes to the electrical socket, the lawyer tossed back what was already poured and instead filled half of his mug with Grand Marnier despite knowing that it wouldn’t actually do anything for him.

It was the thought that counted.

*

The thing was, despite the fact that Beacon Hills was the county seat, it was still small town enough to proudly host stereotypical small town, seasonal events that were oftentimes featured in feel-good Hallmark movies. Fall became home to the Autumnal Communal Pumpkin Carving Contest, spring foresaw the welcome of the Springtime Flower and Lawn Extravaganza, summer promised the need of pants with bigger waistbands when the entire month of July came paired with the Red, White, and Blueberries Great Bake-off, but winter… winter was a whole different beast entirely.

The holidays preluded the arrival of the Winter Season’s Decorative Showcase.

Peter had always been of the opinion that the names of each of the events were over-the-top cutesy and unnecessarily stressing upon the small town-ness of Beacon Hills, but they were events that had been regularly attended since the town’s founding and there were certain members of the community who had been overly invested in winning each of these events.

Stiles, for example.

Since the amber-eyed man had struck out on his own and left the Sheriff’s house to buy a home for himself, Stiles had set his sights on coming out on top for at least _one_ of the community events. Unfortunately for Peter’s mate (…and Peter’s sanity), Stiles had steep competition in the form of their across-the-street neighbor.

For as long as anyone could remember, Gladys Finch had been the town’s undisputed winner; it did not matter the season or the event—she won.

And Stiles was absolutely determined to topple her from her throne.

Even if it killed him.

*

“Hey there, Mrs. F,” the honey-eyed man greeted with a bite of his apple as he came up to stand side-by-side with the little old lady who had been his arch nemesis for the past three years. The apple slice crunched audibly as he bit down on it, and Gladys tilted her head back to offer her neighbor a grandmotherly smile.

“Good morning, Stiles. How are you today? Last time I spoke with that young man of yours, he mentioned that you were hired for a new commission…?” Gladys Finch answered back, voice quivery and quavery and wavering and soft with old age. She took a sip from the teacup in her hands and hid a smile as the handyman she’d hired to assist with the Christmas decorations bent down in front of her. Gladys hummed quietly to herself as denim tightened and clung to the curve of certain body parts.

Not yet picking up on his neighbor’s distraction, Stiles perked up at the question.

“I’m doing okay so far today, and the commission work has been steady—picking up because of the holidays, though, so I’ve had to cut back on the number I have active at any given time. Otherwise, I’d be buried in projects from now until July,” Stiles replied readily enough, taking another bite from his apple—crisply red against the white snow that lined the street—and shifted his gaze to see where the older woman’s almost predatory attention had meandered off to. 

He quirked an eyebrow as the handyman then squatted down to pick up one of the decorative reindeers and the man’s jeans tightened over the tree trunk thickness of his thighs. Muscles bulged as the statue was lifted, and Stiles was willing to put money down that he had seen Gladys’ eyes _gleam_ as the handyman’s biceps flexed.

“…enjoying the view?” Stiles asked innocently enough, and the teacup did little enough to hide the sly smile that curled Gladys’ lips upwards.

“My Adam, rest his soul, wasn’t nearly as robust as these young men nowadays. I’m just incredibly… appreciative… of the help that they’re providing to me. Goodness knows my old bones would never be able to lug around these heavy statues,” Gladys responded easily enough, and Stiles was impressed that butter wouldn’t have ever melted in her mouth.

Stiles snorted quietly in amusement and took another bite of his apple, covertly looking over the rough outline of how Gladys would be decorating her lawn. Just from what he could see, it looked like she was planning on going the Santa’s village route—cute and not yet done in previous competitions and sure to be a hit with the kids (which always gained extra points from the judges). He had the feeling that the little old lady was fully planning on leaving utter destruction and devastation of her competition in her wake to the winner’s medal.

It seemed like he had his work cut out for him, then.

(But there was going to be a reckoning coming for her— _like hell_ was Stiles going to lose for another year straight.)

*

“Good evening, sweetheart,” Peter purred quietly as he stepped up behind Stiles; he set his briefcase on the floor, out of the way of his mate’s coltish legs (and their tendency to trip over anything and everything in range), and pressed his nose into the hair at the amber-eyed man’s temple. A deep breath, drawing in the familiar scent of ozone—of the magic that had underlined Stiles’ base scent for _years_ —and the ‘wolf shifted closer still to cup his hands over the sharp arch of the other man’s hips. Home, promised safety and the knowledge that acceptance would always be coming: this man who started as a boy that stared down the monster Peter had turned himself into. The ‘wolf nuzzled in closer, letting his fangs drop just enough to tease at a hint of danger as they skimmed over the edge of Stiles’ ear.

“Hey, there, creeperwolf,” Stiles murmured in answer, voice familiar enough to the older man that he could hear the smile hidden within it. “By your frisky mood, I take it that you annihilated in court today?”

Peter gave a small mock growl, nipping just a bit harder at the shell of the younger man’s ear. “Don’t I _always_ leave behind utter annihilation?” he chided oh-so gently and dragged Stiles closer still.

An unimpressed snort came at the words’ heels, and Peter could feel the shift in Stiles’ body language as he geared himself up for the inevitable banter “Well, there was that time—” he began before abruptly stilling; Peter jerked back and away from the honey-eyed man: Stiles had gone so silent that he wasn’t even _breathing_ , and there was an acrid, sharp shift in the younger man’s familiar scent.

“…Stiles?” Peter asked, oddly tentatively as he watched his mate stare unseeingly at the television, eyes wide as the news anchor started on another story after the weather report wrapped up.  
Stiles blinked and turned away from the screen, face bleached of all color.

**SEVEN DAYS MISSING: Sam Penunuri, Sole Proprietor of Handyman Hands-on Handiness**

“I saw him. Just today,” the Emissary said, voice and expression blank.

“Where?”

“…at Mrs. Finch’s. He was setting up the decorations for her.”

Peter frowned at that and reached out to gently tug Stiles close once more, arms coming ‘round to circle the younger man’s waist. “Are you sure that it was the same worker? Maybe they just had similar enough features.”

Stiles frowned at that, neither agreeing with nor denying Peter’s suggestion: it was a reasonable enough suggestion for most other people, but… Stiles’ dad had been a cop for as long as the amber-eyed man could remember, and Stiles had gotten in the habit of _noticing_ things, details that other people might miss. And the edge of the tattoo that peeked out from beneath the collar of Penunuri’s shirt—he _remembered_ it.

Remembered, too, the curve of Gladys’ smile and how he had brushed it off as a little old lady innocently enjoying the eyecandy that a young, muscled man provided as he hauled heavy things around her yard. 

But—

*

“Do I even want to know what you’re doing?” Noah Stilinski asked as he leaned a shoulder against the doorframe to his office, letting his expression speak for him as he watched Stiles type away at his work computer—a work computer that was normally password-locked. And that his son technically didn’t have the authorization to access.

(Not that _rules_ and _regulations_ had ever stopped Stiles before, and Noah was forever grateful for the friendship that Scott had with Stiles because, otherwise, the Sheriff was rather certain that his son would have become a criminal mastermind on a level that was one for the history books.)

“Research,” Stiles absently said, frowning a bit at one of the windows that popped up on the computer screen; he made a notation on the legal pad situated next to the computer’s mouse, and Noah was angled just right enough to see the words _Leonard Berdshaw/27 CraigsL HM – RWBGB 7/8/98 - MIA 6/29/98_.

Noah’s eyebrows crept up his forehead; he was versed enough in Stiles’ shorthand to at least understand _some_ of what was written. “You’re looking into a missing person case? Why? Is this something to do with… everyone’s furry little problem?”

“Huh? Oh. No,” the amber-eyed man said with a blink, finally turning his attention away from the positively ancient desktop that had perched atop his father’s desk for _years_. “Or, well. Maybe. I haven’t decided yet—hence the research and the cold case review.”

He flipped the legal pad over to the front, and Noah saw for the first time that over half of the notebook was already filled with similar comments from his son: a name, an age(?), a reference he didn’t yet understand, a date gone missing, and a rotation of ACPCC, SFLE, RWBGB, and WSDS with dates(?) attached to each abbreviation, as well.

Stiles had already researched _years_ worth of missing people—the earliest date that Noah spotted, brief as it was, went back to the sixties.

“…Stiles,” the Sheriff began, true alarm emerging as his son made another note. “What _is_ this?”

Noah could see how Stiles weighed his options—to tell or not to tell—before finally pulling his shoulders back to stare his father in the eye. He took a deep breath and then: “I think that Gladys Finch is a serial killer. Or something supernatural. Or both. Right now I’m kinda leaning towards both.”

Silence reigned in the space between the men, though it was broken soon enough by Noah’s sigh. He brought a hand up to tiredly rub at his eyes, eventually lifting his head again to give his son an unimpressed _Look_. “Really, son? You’re going to go with this? I know that you were upset that she beat your Batman pumpkin and that you were expecting to win with your grandmother’s mazurek królewski recipe in the bake-off last summer—”

“Babcia’s mazurek is a goddamned national treasure and the fact that an _apple pie_ beat it out was--!!”

Noah brought up a hand to forestall any additional commentary—it had all been heard before, for _months_ —and Stiles bit off any further ranting about the injustice of the judges’ cookie-cutter worldview and the bland tastebuds that linked back to it.

“ _Regardless of that_ , are you really going to try to go this route? Three weeks before the judges go around to all of the decorated houses? Peter already called to give me that head’s up that Gladys has started earlier than usual this year and that her theme is shaping up to be, and I quote, ‘quite quaint.’”

It took a moment for the younger man to realize what his father was implying, and—when the realization came—Stiles’ cheeks flushed pink with both rage and mortification. 

“ _Sabotage_?? That’s what you think this is all about, Pops??”

“You’ve done it before,” Noah replied, answer blunt.

“That was _fourth grade_ and it was _Jackson_!”

“Precedence and pattern of behavior,” the Sheriff shot back, still as blunt as ever.

“She’s been killing young, good-looking handymen for decades!” Stiles snapped back and shook his legal pad full of notes in Noah’s direction. “And! I did some additional research and I found out that there’s no record of her actually living in that house! Because that house doesn’t actually exist! In any record with the county! So not only is she a serial killing maybe-supernatural creature, but she’s doing it while also _avoiding paying her taxes_!”

Noah quirked an unimpressed eyebrow.


End file.
